This invention relates generally to searching and to maps, and more specifically to organization and display of a map containing information relevant to a search.
FIG. 1 shows one prior technique and device for displaying search results on a map. In this technique, all the results up to a certain number are displayed. This makes taking in the displayed information rather difficult. In particular, it suffers from the following drawbacks: 1) the zoom level may be too high resulting in loss of location context; 2.) if panning occurs in addition to a zoom change, further loss of location context results; and 3.) if there are outlier results, some outlier results, bunching of results in closer proximity to the desired location will result in visual overlay and information loss. For example, if one or two results are much further than the other results, such as results 1 and 8 in FIG. 1, the other results overlap each other and the user cannot resolve the number of the results on the map and/or the street location, as they are obscured by the other results.
Other prior solutions may result in a better distribution, but move the center of the displayed map in order to do so, which is disorienting to users and undesirable.